A Roadmap for Foundational Research on Artificial Intelligence in Medical Imaging: From the 2018 NIH/RSNA/ACR/The Academy Workshop

TLDR

Imaging labs are rapidly developing AI systems that match expert performance and target tasks such as reconstruction, noise reduction, quality assurance, triage, segmentation, computer‑aided detection, classification, and radiogenomics. The roadmap aims to identify and prioritize research needs for academic laboratories, funding agencies, professional societies, and industry. In 2018, a NIH meeting produced a roadmap outlining key research priorities, including new reconstruction methods, automated labeling, tailored machine‑learning architectures, explainable AI, and data de‑identification for clinical imaging.

Abstract

Imaging research laboratories are rapidly creating machine learning systems that achieve expert human performance using open-source methods and tools. These artificial intelligence systems are being developed to improve medical image reconstruction, noise reduction, quality assurance, triage, segmentation, computer-aided detection, computer-aided classification, and radiogenomics. In August 2018, a meeting was held in Bethesda, Maryland, at the National Institutes of Health to discuss the current state of the art and knowledge gaps and to develop a roadmap for future research initiatives. Key research priorities include: 1, new image reconstruction methods that efficiently produce images suitable for human interpretation from source data; 2, automated image labeling and annotation methods, including information extraction from the imaging report, electronic phenotyping, and prospective structured image reporting; 3, new machine learning methods for clinical imaging data, such as tailored, pretrained model architectures, and federated machine learning methods; 4, machine learning methods that can explain the advice they provide to human users (so-called explainable artificial intelligence); and 5, validated methods for image de-identification and data sharing to facilitate wide availability of clinical imaging data sets. This research roadmap is intended to identify and prioritize these needs for academic research laboratories, funding agencies, professional societies, and industry.